Tri Bourne celebrating birthday staying fit and parenting
REDONDO BEACH, California, USA, June 20, 2020 - A year ago
today, Tri Bourne was prepping here for the FIVB Beach
Volleyball World Championships in Hamburg along with helping his
wife prepare for the arrival of the couple's first child in
September.
Twelve months later, Bourne and his wife Gabby are tending to
daughter Naia while the seven-season veteran prepares to juggle
his beach volleyball career as both a player and administrator
after being elected last month to the board of directors for USA
Volleyball.
"It’s an honour to be selected for the USA Volleyball board of
directors," said Bourne, who turns 31 today at his mainland home
in southern California. "I was interested in the position
because I’d like to learn more about our sport and have a larger
impact beyond playing. I’m looking forward to learning a lot and
gaining a closer relationship with the other board members and
my fellow athletes."
With his last competitive appearance in mid-March at an FIVB
World Tour event in Qatar with Trevor Crabb, Bourne said he
would rather be "at home in Hawai'i, but the travel restrictions
have made that difficult. I have been working out a lot in the
gym that I built in my garage.
Bourne added that he feels he has “been able to stay in great
shape and lucky to have access to private courts where I can
play a little bit. I’ve also had the opportunity to watch more
film and study the game from a defender's perspective, which is
something I still feel like I have a lot to learn about."
But he also likes "spending most of my time watching my daughter
grow up. Becoming a parent has been a huge adjustment but it’s
been a blessing to have the opportunity to be home during her
first year."
As he and Crabb are the United States’ second-ranked team on the
Olympic qualification list for Tokyo, Bourne said “it’s
definitely a silver lining for me to be at home with Gabby and
Naia. I was planning on being away a lot during the season, so
to be here to see her learn how to crawl, wave, clap, etc. has
been amazing. Those small things are important to me right now.”
Due to a chronic inflammatory muscle disease called
dermatomyositis, Bourne missed over two years of play on the
FIVB World Tour after finishing third with John Hyden at the
2016 mid-September World Tour Finals in Toronto.
When he resumed play with Crabb as his new partner at the end of
September 2018 at an FIVB event in Qinzhou, China, the American
pair captured the gold medal by winning five of six matches. The
Americans avenged a pool play setback in Qinzhou to Taras Myskiv
and Valeriy Samoday 2-0 (21-17, 21-17) by defeating the Russians
in the finals 2-0 (21-18, 21-9).
“I definitely think that the time I was forced to spend away
from beach volleyball in 2017 has prepared me well for this time
in 2020,” said Bourne. “I feel like I was well prepared to find
the positives and take advantage of this time off rather than
dwell on the negatives of not being able to play and compete for
a living.”
Bourne and Crabb are ranked 11th on the FIVB men’s provisional
Olympic ranking list with 6,360 points for their best 12
finishes. Jake Gibb and Taylor Crabb are the top American team
in the Tokyo rankings with 6,680 points for the No. 8 spot
overall.
Lurking in the third USA spot are Phil Dalhausser and Nick
Lucena, fifth-place finishers at the Rio 2016 Olympics where the
Americans were eliminated by eventual gold medal winners Alison
Cerutti and Bruno Schmidt of Brazil in a three-set quarterfinal
match. Dalhausser and Lucena have 5,840 points but have played
in only 11 qualifying events to date.
“It’s really difficult to wrap our brains around the fact that
the qualification will be extended for another year,” said
Bourne. “We are a young team which is still working out the
kinks of split blocking. In our minds this extra time is
something that we can use to our advantage. I enjoy taking some
time to study the game via film because I feel like I am seeing
things differently now. Only time will tell!”
In addition to a gold medal finish in their first FIVB World
Tour event together in China, Bourne and Trevor Crabb posted an
impressive fourth-place finish at the 2019 FIVB Beach Volleyball
World Championships in Hamburg where all three of their loses
were to the teams that finished on the podium.
While the FIVB World Tour is on break due to the coronavirus,
Bourne is also spending “significant amount of time working on
my podcast (SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and
Travis Mewhirter) it is the most listened to volleyball podcast
in the United States, Canada, Australia, Germany and Sweden
according to a podcast tracker called Chartable. We release
episodes every Wednesday with a new influential guest from the
Volleyball world.” |